Author: cjzurcher

Simplify!

I saw this near a relative’s house over this Thanksgiving weekend. Armed with my new Olympus XZ-1, which won a gold award from DPReview largely because of its 1.8 lens. I was very happy for a time with my first digital camera which was an Olympus C750.

The XZ-1 comes equipped with a few different scene modes and art filters, I quickly got out of the car and walked up the street to see what I could get. An old truck in front of an old house. What good is that? Do I need to get closer? Do I need a different background? Do I need to come back when the sun is overhead?

Simplify!

I wasn’t going to be around that much longer, I thought, and even when I did see the sun had moved a bit, I was still happy with what the 3″ screen was showing me. I took a few shots with a few different art filters on. This one is one that brings a high contrast to the image. Not too much tweaking other than an old type of frame around it with my PhotoScape and here we are.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Back to work tomorrow.

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Children’s hopes and fears surveyed across the world

ADDIS ABABA, 20 November 2012 (IRIN) – For the past three years, the ChildFund Alliance, a coalition of development and protection NGOs, has surveyed thousands of children around the world about their experiences, aspirations and concerns.

“When I grow up….” 54 percent of Ugandan children surveyed would like a career in medicine

Highlights of the third survey – of 6,204 children between 10 and 12 years old in 47 countries – were released on 20 November, revealing:

50 percent of respondents in developing countries, would, if made president, focus on better education to improve the lives of other children.

25 percent of respondents in developing countries would provide for basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.

46 percent of the African children surveyed said they had experienced a drought.

10 percent of children in developed countries had experienced drought.

44 percent of children surveyed in Africa said they had experienced a bush or forest fire.

15 percent of African respondents said improving health care was a priority.

5 percent of children in developed countries said the same.

67 percent of children surveyed in Ghana said they would like to grow up to be doctors, nurses or dentists.

43 percent of children in developing countries said they would like to become professional athletes, artists or entertainers.

43 percent of children in Sierra Leone say death, illness and disease are their greatest fears.

For more on this story, visit: IRIN Global | In Brief: Children’s hopes and fears surveyed across the world | Global | Children.

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Making peace means leaving the protected place where we are right

Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai wrote: 'From the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring.' Photograph: AP/Zoom 77

… Poets understand tragedy better than politicians. For what makes tragedy tragic is not that the situation is sad there are other words for that but that it is where the sloganising binaries of right and wrong no longer function as a useful guide. Which is why making peace means leaving the protected place where we are right.

For more on this story, visit: Making peace means leaving the protected place where we are right | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian.

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My baby in the middle of painting her front door

She wears her painting clothes. Like any serious artist, she has special clothes for special projects. The painter has his smocks, the writer has his robe or smoking jacket or favorite flannel shirt, the cyclist his shorts and shoes, the photographer his fingerless gloves.

Rachel taking a break from painting the front door
Rachel taking a break from painting the front door
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Imagine All My Words — The John Lennon Letters

By Tim Riley

“The John Lennon Letters”
A book edited by Hunter Davies

Like rain into a paper cup, words fairly giggled out of John Lennon’s pen nearly every day of his too-short 40 years. Now Hunter Davies, the Beatles’ early “authorized” 1968 biographer, has collected 285 Lennon letters, postcards, telegrams and to-do lists from early childhood to Dec. 8, 1980, hours before he was killed. They are bound in a handsome layout with reproductions of every entry, many of which are typed—hilariously—beside Davies’ transcriptions. Almost all reward close inspection both for Lennon’s intriguingly loose hand and whimsical cartoons. If he hadn’t become a songwriter/performer, Lennon could easily have gained notoriety as a scathing countercultural satirist on a par with B. Kliban or George Crumb.

For more on this story, visit: Imagine All My Words – Book Review – Truthdig.

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Louise Erdrich’s Novel ‘The Round House’ Wins National Book Award

Beating out an unusually competitive field, Louise Erdrich won the National Book Award for fiction on Wednesday night for “The Round House,” a novel about a teenage boy’s effort to investigate an attack on his mother on a North Dakota reservation, and his struggle to come to terms with the violence in their culture.

Louise Erdrich’s Novel ‘The Round House’ Wins National Book Award - NYTimes.com

Ms. Erdrich accepted the award in part in her Native American language. She said she wanted to acknowledge “the grace and endurance of native women.”

For more on this story, visit: Louise Erdrich’s Novel ‘The Round House’ Wins National Book Award – NYTimes.com.

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Obama Rejects Boehner’s Fake Tax Compromise: We have to address our fiscal problems using math, not magic

We have to address our fiscal problems using math, not magic. President Obama received a mandate from voters to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. Instead of trying recycle and repackage their failed plans, it’s time for Republicans to stop holding middle class tax cuts hostage and start making a deal.

What I will not do is to have a process that is vague, that says we’re going to sorta-kinda raise revenue through dynamic scoring or closing loopholes that have not been identified. And the reason I won’t do that is I don’t want to find ourselves in a position six months from now or a year from now, where low-and-behold, the only way to close the deficit is to sock it to middle-class families.

For more on this story, visit: Obama Rejects Boehner’s Fake Tax Compromise | ThinkProgress.

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HDR for the Rest of Us | dpreview

Old Havana, Cuba. This is what most of us associate with HDR imagery; surreal colors and exaggerated saturation. A taste embraced by some and reviled by others.

But even photographers who wish to create more traditionally-photographic types of images can benefit greatly from capturing wide dynamic range scenes. After all, we see the world around us in a very wide dynamic range, so why shouldn’t we take advantage to photograph it that way as well? And at its core, that’s really what HDR photography is about.

For more on this story, visit: HDR for the Rest of Us: Digital Photography Review.

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Connecticut’s Center for Cancer Survivors Opens in Southport

You may be a Republican or Democrat. You may believe in God or don’t. You might like the Giants or the Pats.But at some point, everyone knows someone with cancer.Now there’s a place nearby right here in Connecticut that is geared solely toward helping people who have completed their post-diagnosis treatments and are in the ongoing survivorship in their fight against cancer.

The CT Challenge Center for Survivorship opened in September in Southport, CT with the mission to empower cancer survivors to live healthier, happier, longer lives by creating and funding survivorship programs and research, offering resources, and building a community of support for people who have fought cancer.

For more on this story, visit: Connecticut’s Center for Cancer Survivors Opens – Fairfield, CT Patch.

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Movie Premiere of The 5K Motion 5 p.m. Sun. Nov. 11, Sprague Hall, New Haven

470 College St.

Doors open at 5 p.m. Movie begins at 6 p.m.

STOP Handgun Violence Movie Premiere of The 5K Motion at Yale University’s Sprague Hall on November 11, 2012. The 5K Motion is a short film that showcases girls’ and women’ roles in violent crimes. The REACH Foundation has been working cohesively with the New Haven Family Alliance for arranging the movie premiere of The 5K Motion, where local at-risk kids from the 3 major CT cities auditioned and debuted their talent in this movie. Admission is free.

More on the 5K Rule:

One way for federal defendants to increase the likelihood that they will receive lower sentences or to have previously-imposed sentences reduced is by “cooperating” with the government. When a defendant “cooperates,” it means that he or she helps the government investigate or prosecute someone else. There are two ways that “cooperating” can result in a lower sentence. If a defendant cooperates before sentencing, the prosecutor can file a motion pursuant to § 5K1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines also known as a “5K” motion. If a defendant cooperates after sentencing, the prosecutor can file a Rule 35 motion. “Cooperating” does not guarantee that a prosecutor will file a § 5K1.1 or Rule 35 motion. Before a prosecutor will file a motion, the cooperation must amount to “substantial assistance.”

For more on this from Atty. James H. Feldman Jr.’s site:  Federal Criminal Rule 35 and § 5K1.1 Motions Lawyer | Philadelphia Federal Rule 35 and § 5K1.1 Motions Lawyer.

 

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GDT European wildlife photographer of the year 2012 – in pictures | guardian.co.uk Stunning images of animals from land and sea feature in this selection of the best wildlife snaps of the GDT European wildlife photographer of the year awards GDT European wildlife photographer of the year 2012 – in pictures

Stunning images of animals from land and sea feature in this selection of the best wildlife snaps of the GDT European wildlife photographer of the year awards

For more on this story, visit: GDT European wildlife photographer of the year 2012 – in pictures | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

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A Quest to Document Earth’s Disappearing Glaciers: e360 Gallery

For the past six years, photographer James Balog has deployed dozens of time-lapse cameras around the world to chronicle one of the starkest examples of global warming — melting glaciers. In a photo gallery and interview with Yale Environment 360, Balog displays his work and discusses his passion to capture these vanishing landscapes.

The extraordinarily rapid retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier is captured in this photograph. In the 1980s, ice filled this valley up to the dark vegetation line. But since then more than 1,200 vertical feet of ice have melted, exposing the dun-colored rock once covered by the glacier. The Columbia Glacier has retreated 10 miles over the past two decades. Photo courtesy of James Balog

For more on this story, visit: A Quest to Document Earth’s Disappearing Glaciers: e360 Gallery.

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Storm surge barriers: A lesson U.S. needs to learn from Europe? – CBS News

For the last 30 years, the Thames Flood Barrier, a high-tech barrier that is raised and lowered almost like the gates to a medieval castle, has been protecting the heart of London from the kind of catastrophic storm surge that hit New York last week.

Andy Batchelor helps keeps the vast concrete and steel structure in London operational — always with one eye on the weather. With his decades of experience, he could see the trouble headed New York’s way. Batchelor said, “I spend half my life looking at the weather and to see the three weather systems coming in to — what happened in New York, I was absolutely amazed to what on earth that was going to give.”

For more on this story, visit: Storm surge barriers: A lesson U.S. needs to learn from Europe? – CBS News.

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U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious

U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious - CBS News

Pollsters and pundits in the United States may be hedging their bets, but a bookie in Britain is paying out even before the presidential race is over. Paddy Power, Europe’s largest book-maker and one of the big “bet shop” chains in Britain where they’ll bet on anything has decided that President Obama has already won reelection, and is handing over cash to those who placed bets on him.

For more on this story, visit: U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious – CBS News.

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After Sandy, communities mobilize a new kind of disaster relief

I’m not sure when I realized that we were in the middle of a full-blown disaster. Maybe it was when I saw the outline of a National Guard soldier hanging off the side of a hummer on a blackened strip of Rockaway Boulevard. Perhaps it was when I received a panicky email from an assemblyman’s office saying that “ppl are starving in Broad Channel.” I’m sure the comparisons to Hurricane Katrina and September 11 helped speed the realization. All I know for sure is that by Thursday, when widespread gas shortages swept New York City and out-of-staters began offering to donate bio-diesel trucks, I understood that we were organizing in the midst of a crisis.

For more on this story, visit: After Sandy, communities mobilize a new kind of disaster relief / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.

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Amazing long-exposure photos of Hong Kong in motion

There are 7 million people in Hong Kong, one of the densest and fastest-paced cities in the world. Photographer Brian Yen, in a series of long-exposure shots, captures the overwhelming velocity of it all, a blur of motion and light. Yen kindly granted me permission to reproduce his photos here, along with this note about the thinking behind them.

I think of my self similar to an archeologist. I’m an excavator of existence, dusting off the un-interesting bits to reveal the gem underneath. I hope those who view my photos, would be inspired to do a little dusting of their own and find joy where it once was dirt.

For more on this story, visit: Amazing long-exposure photos of Hong Kong in motion.

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Connecticut Poets Tap State’s Heart, Vitality

Connecticut poets tap state’s heart, vitality

Though it may not be the first thing we associate with Connecticut, poetry has been a vital part of our lives in for more than 200 years. It has inspired us or warned us, and on many occasions it has sharpened our thoughts or warmed our hearts. One of Connecticut’s 19th-century poets, James Abraham Hillhouse of New Haven, claimed in a talk he gave in 1836 that poetry offered an antidote to America’s addiction to “Politics and the Love of Money.”

Hillhouse’s teacher, Yale College President Timothy Dwight, offered sage advice in his long poem “Greenfield Hill”: “Hire not, for what yourselves can do; / Nor, ’till to-morrow’s light, delay, / What might as well be done to-day.” Other poets of the post-Revolutionary era celebrated the new nation in glowing patriotic verse, and through their words shaped the spirit of an emerging country. Joel Barlow’s comic “The Hasty Pudding,” a poem in praise of what we call mush or polenta (depending on where we eat it), was extremely popular.

For more on this story, visit: Connecticut Poets Tap State’s Heart, Vitality – Hartford Courant.

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